More than two thirds of primary teachers saw pupils in distress
Teacher Tapp, the daily survey app for teachers, asked a number of questions around KS2 SATs this year, helping to give a picture of the impact on teachers and children. Teacher Tapp poses daily survey questions on a range of topics to teachers who have signed up to the app. The questions are designed to take no more than five minutes in total to complete, with around 10,000 teachers typically responding each day, although this varies from question to question.
Before the KS2 SATs took place, Teacher Tapp had questions for year 6 teachers, asking if they had completed all their work in preparation for SATs during timetabled lessons. 15 per cent of year six teachers had ‘comfortably’ completed all the work for SATs during timetabled lessons, 54 per cent had ‘just about’ squeezed it in, and 31 per cent hadn’t completed it all in timetabled lessons. Year 6 teachers were also asked about their wellbeing, with those who hadn’t covered all the SATs content almost twice as likely to report feeling under strain ‘all of the time’, compared to those who had covered the content (16 per cent vs 9 per cent). Meanwhile, the impact of the SATs was also felt more widely, with more than half (50 per cent) of primary teachers reporting that they lost a teaching assistant/learning support assistant because of the assessments.
Teachers were also asked about the impacts of the SATs that they observed on pupils. More than two-thirds (68 per cent) of primary teachers said they saw students showing signs of upset or distress. Teacher Tapp has also asked this question in previous years, and this is very slightly up on 2025 (66 per cent), but an improvement on 2024, when it stood at 81 per cent. Teachers in schools with the most pupils eligible for Free School Meals (FSM) were more likely to report seeing distressed students than those in the least deprived schools (74 per cent to 59 per cent). Teachers in schools that ran extra SATs preparation sessions were also more likely to report student distress than those in schools that didn’t (76 per cent vs 68 per cent). However, it appears that it is not simply explained by the most deprived schools running more SATs preparation sessions than the least deprived schools: among schools with the highest FSM levels, teachers in schools running extra sessions were still more likely to report distressed students than those in schools that didn’t (82 per vs 71 per cent). Relatedly, teachers were also asked whether they were aware of any pupils whose parents had kept them at home because of the KS2 SATs. More than one in ten (12 per cent) said that they were. Again, this is a question Teacher Tapp have asked over a number of years, and this year’s figure is much higher than before the coronavirus pandemic (it stood at just 4 per cent in 2019), but lower than the 15 per cent recorded in 2024.
Finally, questions were asked around whether teachers involved in the tests have done things that would count as maladministration, or have been encouraged to do them. In positive news, 85 per cent said that they have never engaged in maladministration or been encouraged to do so. Of the 15 per cent who said they had, some the types of maladministration reported included: 48 per cent saying they had pointed out an incorrect answer; 46 per cent saying that a reader or scribe had been used when that isn’t the normal classroom practice; 27 per cent gave (unauthorised) extra time and 26 per cent said they had sounded spellings in a helpful way (e.g. ex-tin-gu-ish). It was much rarer for teachers to report giving an answer to a pupil (5 per cent), and amending papers after they had been completed (1 per cent).
Further details of the survey findings and methodology are available at:
https://teachertapp.com/articles/ks2-sats-special-plus-screen-time-and-inappropriate-comments/